1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to methods and systems for tracking or monitoring portable or removable data storage media, and, more particularly, to software, hardware, systems, and methods for determining a physical location and other characteristics of removable storage media particularly when the storage media is transported in and out of a controlled space such as to offsite archives.
2. Relevant Background
Today's society requires that huge amounts of data be stored for later retrieval. For many enterprises or businesses, important data is stored on portable or removable data storage media such as magnetic tape, magnetic disk, optical tape, optical disk, solid state devices, or the like. The removable storage media allows information to be periodically accessed and when not in use to be removed from the media access device (e.g., a library with tape or disk drives) and placed in controlled areas or spaces that may be onsite for short term storage or transported to offsite archive locations (e.g., large, secure warehouses designed for safely storing such removable data storage media) for long term storage. Removable data storage media may be kept at an offsite archive or warehouse for a number of reasons including to address space constraints of the onsite facility, to comply with disaster recovery policies that require backup copies of data be stored remotely, and to provide a more physically secure storage location.
A serious problem associated with removable data storage media is how to avoid losing any of the media. Loss of media is not only a concern during transport from one location to another (e.g., from an enterprise's data access center to an archive warehouse) but also is a concern within a single location (e.g., misplacing of a tape cartridge within a controlled space, removal of a disk from a controlled space or the like). Within a data center, efforts have been made to track removable data storage media. These techniques include using low frequency radio frequency identification (RFID) tags placed on the media, such as on a tape cartridge, and RFID readers within a media access device, such as a tape library, to wirelessly determine if the expected or correct media has been inserted in a read/write device. Bar code readers may also be used with tape libraries or other media access systems to track the location and to identify tape cartridges within the particular library. Both of these techniques require close proximity between the media and reader to be effective and are only useful within the library or media access system or device.
When a removable data storage media is removed from the access system (e.g., tape library), its physical location is often only tracked with standard manual tracking techniques such as logging of serial numbers of the media with or without support of bar code scanners. For example, a technician may be logged as having possession of tape cartridge but there is no ongoing tracking of the location of the tape cartridge. As a reset, the cartridge and its data may be easily lost. Another concern is that business process rules, such as avoiding storing the cartridge at temperatures above a preset limit or not removing a cartridge from a controlled space, are more likely to be violated.
Additional problems arise with the transport of removable data storage media between controlled spaces separated by uncontrolled spaces and from a controlled space to a data archive facility or warehouse. Generally, the media is removed from a library or other data access device and placed in a shipping container, such as a media magazine with slots or grooves with a form factor matching the particular media such as a tape cartridge. A manual logging or scan of the bar code of each piece of media in the container is typically performed at the controlled space egress point and then, again as the shipping container is received at the destination control space or archive facility and at its final storage destination within the archive facility. The transport process may involve setting a particular route for the media transport and expected times for the transport or even for each leg or portion of the transport. However, existing techniques only track the shipping container but provide no direct information on the location or status of individual pieces of media or related sets of such media (e.g., three tape cartridges within one or more shipping containers may be related to a particular business application or contain specific related information for which all cartridges are needed to recover the information). Some efforts have been made to better track the location of the shipping containers, such as with the use of ID tags on the containers, but such systems fail to provide verification of individual storage media.
These prior techniques provided no confirmation of location or status between the way or check points and often only verified the container rather than individual media within the container. There remains a need for a system for better tracking the physical location and status of individual pieces of removable data storage media. Preferably such a system, and associated methods, would allow an operator to track the physical location of removable data storage media in a variety of domains or physical locales and would readily integrate with existing data management systems.